Those are stored in binary format and compressed, in proprietary-format tracev3 files. Apple’s main aims in introducing this were to consolidate (almost) all log entries into a single location, and to make the process of writing a log entry both lightweight and efficient.Ĭurrently, each log entry consists of up to 27 different fields, including its date and timestamp, message type and category, subsystem, multiple ID numbers for thread and process, path and UUID for process and sender, and specialised fields for activities and Signposts, the latter being used for performance monitoring. Each log entry consisted of writing a message in plain text, which was then tagged with a time and other details.Īlthough the vestiges of that old system still remain, the vast majority of entries written using standard system calls now go into the Unified Log, which is stored in compressed binary form and far more detailed.
Many individual apps and processes also wrote their own log files, which didn’t have to be in standard locations. Key entries were scattered across several different files, including system.log and console.log, which were regularly rotated as part of daily housekeeping. Prior to macOS Sierra, Mac OS X followed Unix conventions, in that its logs consisted of various text files stored in obvious places, such as the Logs folder in each of the standard Library folders.
Like a ship’s log, a computer’s log is a record of events, normally a time-ordered sequence of messages written so those events can be analysed to determine the cause of bugs or crashes, investigate security breaches, assess performance, and for many other purposes.
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